By the time she left the bathroom, I had to rush in to finish getting dressed, and then we raced to the hotel restaurant where my parents were already eating. After a quick breakfast, we exited the building and entered the vehicle waiting to take us to the conference.
Father was silent as he looked over his sermon notes, encouraging other countries to follow America’s lead and abolish alcohol. He was a handsome man in his late fifties. Tall and athletically built. He’d been a baseball player in his early twenties before turning his life over to Christ and pursuing a ministry as a pastor and reformer.
Mother was small and gentle in comparison, but her size was no indicator of her strength. She stood passionately alongside my father, supporting every move he made and advocating for her own beliefs and opinions. They were an admirable couple whom I respected deeply, even if their ministry felt too heavy for my shoulders. I often wondered if I hadn’t been born with the uncertainty that came with two lives, and the possibility that my grandmother was hanged as a witch in Salem, would I have been more confident in my role as their daughter?
Irene looked out the window as we drove down the Avenue de Friedland and around the Arc de Triomphe. She’d washed her face and was wearing a modest dress, but I suspected she was thinking about her escape the night before, making me curious as to how many other nights she had snuck out.
We finally arrived at the Bois de Boulogne, a magnificent park in Paris that housed several venues that had been used for the conference. Hundreds of people were enjoying the beautiful morning,strolling through the landscaped park, riding the merry-go-round, and fishing in the ponds.
The driver opened the back door for our family.
Father stepped out first, Mother followed, and then I exited after Irene.
“Lindbergh! Lindbergh!” A bedraggled newsboy ran up to us, holding a newspaper aloft in our faces, his hands smudged with ink. “Aviateur Américain!”
“What is he saying?” Father asked Mother.
The boy was speaking quickly in his native tongue. Since Mother spoke French, she listened and nodded several times.
“Another American pilot has attempted to make a flight from New York to Paris for the Orteig Prize,” Mother explained to Father. “He left New York yesterday and, if he makes it, will land in Le Bourget airfield just outside Paris tonight.”
Irene’s eyes opened wide as she tried to peer over Mother’s shoulder at the newspaper she couldn’t read.
“Please purchase the paper from him, Caroline,” Father said as he offered his arm to Mother and led her toward the amphitheater.
I pulled five centimes from my purse and purchased the newspaper, but before I could tuck it under my arm, Irene grabbed it.
“This is so exciting!” she said. “Imagine if he makes it.”
I said, “Merci,” to the newsboy and wrapped my arm through Irene’s to tug her along as we caught up to my parents.
Mother, Irene, and I were ushered to seats at the front of the amphitheater as Father went behind the stage to meet with the organizers. I felt hundreds of eyes upon us as we took our seats. Mother kept a placid smile on her face, but I felt fidgety. Not only because we were the center of attention, but because I was anxious about my escape in 1727. As soon as I woke up there, I would need to work quickly.
I longed to speak to Mother about what was happening in 1727, but just like Nanny, Mother had hushed me as a child, admonishing me not to lie. But when I insisted my second life was real, shebrought the matter to my father, who threatened to discipline me if I didn’t hold my tongue. I hadn’t breathed a word of it since then.
Mother took the newspaper from Irene as she said to me, “Stop fidgeting, Caroline. Do you want the others to think you’re nervous? They might wonder why the daughter of a preacher would be nervous. We don’t want them to think you’re hiding something.”
Irene’s smug smile made me stop trying to get comfortable in my seat. Why did she seem so calm about her secrets? How did she not feel condemnation and guilt, knowing she had run out last night to spend time in a bar?
It was just one more secret I had to keep from my parents and from the teeming masses who either wanted to elevate Father to sainthood or ensure his complete demise. The responsibility to appear perfect on such a worldwide scale was suffocating. My brothers had folded under the demands and chosen their own paths, though my parents had no idea the double lives they were living. Just like Irene, they showed no signs of guilt or shame.
I, on the other hand, felt smothered under the weight of the smallest transgression. Everything I did was scrutinized. Father’s calling to serve God had placed me on an unwanted pedestal. And, if that wasn’t enough, his vision for evangelism was grand and impressive.
Was it not enough to serve God with an ordinary and humble life?
Mother glanced at the newspaper as she was about to set it aside, but then she paused. “This Lindbergh fellow is from Minnesota.”
“Minnesota?” Irene’s interest was piqued again.
I looked closer at the paper, surprised, because we lived in Minneapolis. We would board a ship tomorrow to make our return trip to America, arriving in New York and then going by train to Minneapolis and home. Irene would return to Des Moines and her fretful mother.
When the program finally started, the amphitheater was packed.All eighteen hundred seats were full, and hundreds more were standing around the edges.
Father motioned for me to join him.
I trembled as I took the stage. Though I’d done this dozens of times, it never got easier.
“We’ll sing ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,’” Father said to me.
